


blow out the candles, make a wish

by arkaniis



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Birthday Cake, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-04 11:22:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17303708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arkaniis/pseuds/arkaniis
Summary: "It's not poisoned, you paranoid asshole. If I wanted to kill you I could do it a lot easier than baking arsenic into a chocolate cake."The General turns 30.





	blow out the candles, make a wish

"It's your birthday, General."

Really, what is the point of a Darth Vader rip-off mask if it doesn't constantly and loudly wheeze to announce your presence like a cat collar wards off innocent birds?

Hux sets his stylus pen down and slowly leans back, raising his gaze to the ghoulish figure staring at him silently from across the desk. His own face is reflected in the visor of that ugly monstrosity Ren calls a helmet, pasty and unimpressed at the interruption to inform him that another galactic standard year has passed and he's closer to death than ever before.

"How do you know that?" He asks instead of starting in on the thankless task of improving Ren's appaling manners.

"Do you celebrate on... Arkanis?" Ren ignores the question and the irritation it was packaged up with. He continues to loom there in the shadows without moving, face aimed at Hux's like a horrible statue.

"I don't know if they celebrate on Arkanis." Hux slides his desk chair back a bit and crosses his legs. His hips ache from the position he's been working in for hours. "My father and I fled that planet when I was very young. I was raised on a Star Destroyer. We did not celebrate birthdays on the Absolution."

He does not mention that he very much doubts Brendol would have been thrilled to celebrate his bastard's inconvenient entry into the world regardless of location. He's not sure why he's saying all this to Ren. He's not sure why Ren has decided to approach him about this in the first place. Birthdays must mean something different in the Core. Perhaps he's nostalgic, or-

"Have you ever had a birthday cake?" Ren asks abruptly, interrupting his train of thought.

"A what?"

Ren doesn't answer, just stands there staring at him. It's so quiet that Hux can hear him breathing heavily through his mouth under the mask. Before Hux can repeat himself, the Knight turns jerkily and stomps out.

Well. That's that.

 

\---

 

That's not that. When he finally returns to his quarters hours later, massaging a cramp out of his wrist, he's only somewhat surprised to find Ren lurking in his front room. The Knight is right in front of the door, and he grabs Hux by the upper arm and hauls him back out into the hall before Hux can even finish his outraged query.

"Come with me, General. I expected you back a while ago." He manages to sound offended through the modulator, despite having said no such thing before he stormed out of Hux's office.

Hux struggles to keep up with Ren's determined pace despite their similar height and his own long legs, and after a couple hallways he manages to tear himself free from Ren, bringing them to a halt in the middle of a crossway. He glares and tugs his uniform back into place from the disarray Ren has yanked it into.

"What are you doing?"

Ren's blank mask gives no hint as to his emotional state as he slowly tilts his head towards Hux. He lifts his hand, and Hux feels a tightening around his arm, tugging him forward again. Hux's scowl affects him not at all. Point taken; Ren is not answering questions and he is not stopping.

They cross countless hallways, and it takes Hux longer than it should to realize they're heading towards the Officer's Mess. More specifically, as Ren drags him past the door, towards the attached kitchen. They burst inside to the alarmed beeping of a service droid, which Ren immediately waves at to send it rolling sedately off. He then seals the door behind them, locking them both in the warm kitchen. There is no meal being served this shift, so the chef droids sit powered down at their stations, giving the whole place a rather creepy, deserted atmosphere.

It's an appropriate place to be murdered, Hux thinks while he slowly slides his hidden monomolecular blade into his palm. But Ren doesn't raise a hand toward him again, in fact the grip on his arm vanishes as the man himself slumps over towards a metal table with a warming lamp above it. There's some kind of soft pink... thing sitting on a plate in the center.

Hux gapes at it. It's a dessert of some kind, he thinks, with little candles stuck on the top. It smells sweet even from here. Ren makes no move to either explain himself or touch the- birthday cake, Hux assumes? He just stands there staring at it. All of a sudden the little candles jump to life, their tips flaming.

Hux immediately rushes over and blows them back out, glaring over at Ren.

"We are on a spaceship, Ren, Sith-spitting hells, you can't have open flames here-"

"Make a wish."

"What?"

Ren's breath is heavy under the mask again, and he sounds petulant when he speaks. "Make a wish. It's a tradition. Blow out the candles on your cake, make a wish."

"I wish you would stop being such a cryptic pain in my ass." Hux deadpans, and Ren stands taller with a rush of static from the vocoder that might be laughter. Hux feels his face heat up. He is missing the joke here, he's sure of it, Ren is mocking him-

Ren's helmet makes a loud hissing sound before he pulls it off and thumps it down on the table. He's grinning, which is unfairly handsome on his youthful face. Hux pours all his remaining willpower into looking displeased. It does nothing to dampen Ren's mercurial amusement.

"Use that silly knife you're hiding to cut this, I think my saber would be overkill."

Hux balks at Ren's apparent awareness of his secret weapon and again at the suggestion of using his finely crafted blade to do something as basic as slice up confectionaries. "I will not. We're in a kitchen, Ren, fetch a carving knife or something. Plates and utensils as well, I'm not eating this with my hands."

Ren gives him a bemused look and then glances around. A knife comes dancing over Hux's left shoulder followed by two plates and forks, clattering down gracelessly on the table in front of them. Hux picks up the knife and uses it to cut a thick slice out of the pink mass in front of them. It seems to be about 60% frosting, 40% chocolate pastry. He drops it onto the first plate, and immediately pushes said plate in front of his co-commander.

Ren rolls his eyes and grabs one of the forks, shoving a bite of his sugar monstrosity into his mouth. "It's not poisoned, you paranoid asshole. If I wanted to kill you I could do it a lot easier than baking arsenic into a chocolate cake."

"You made this?" Hux cuts himself a far more modest slice, pretending Ren didn't just nail his anxiety to the wall in front of both of them. "Where does a Jedi padawan find time to learn to bake treats?"

"He doesn't." Ren doesn't even seem annoyed at the question, as he usually is when his forbidden history is brought up so casually. "I learned on Chandrila and Coruscant before I went to live with my Uncle. My mother's droids taught me to keep me occupied while she was working."

Hux's first bite stalls halfway to his mouth as he stares at the cake in naked surprise. He has never heard so many details about Ren's life before the First Order delivered so nonchalantly.

"You wanted me to stop being cryptic," Ren continues as if he heard Hux's thought. He might have. Hux glances at him suspiciously and finds Ren staring back at him, clearly expectant. Right. He lifts the cake the rest of the way, putting it in his mouth after only a little bit of hesitation. Cloying starberry flavor floods his senses first, followed by bitter chocolate. He nearly chokes on it. This is more sugar than he's ever consumed at once in his entire thirty years of life.

Ren is watching him with one cheek resting on his palm and a look of deep satisfied amusement on his face.

"Happy Birthday, General."

**Author's Note:**

> what do you think are the chances he's never had a birthday cake before in his whole sad life - kylo ren's last thought moments before disaster


End file.
